


Kanpo-i

by Razziecat (EchoThruTheWoods)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 14:28:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11670918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoThruTheWoods/pseuds/Razziecat
Summary: Many things are available in Wall Market; sometimes one must search a little harder, and offer something more valuable than gil.





	Kanpo-i

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenjudy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenjudy/gifts).



> I hope this is what you wanted, greenjudy!

The Turk bought tea from Minnow in the market every morning. Usually chamomile or ginger, by which she deduced that he suffered from stomach trouble.

She knew the suit, if not the face or the name. He was younger than Minnow, and as Wutaian as she, which was to say, more of Midgar than of Wutai; the tilak on his brow spoke of even more foreign origins.

It was all the same to Minnow. A Turk was a Turk. Shinra erased all history and wrote its own in the blank spaces left behind. One had to be on guard at all times.

New lines had formed on the Turk’s face. There had been rumors of late, an edge of tension as far down as the slums, word of shake-ups at the highest levels of power. Turks had been conspicuous in their absence, until this one had returned a few days ago, his suit spotless, his hair sleek, his face aged.

This morning he lingered, lean hands cradling the paper cup, his breath misting in the chilly dawn to mingle with the fragrant steam. He seemed to be waiting, watching. She knew the look, saw it every morning in the mirror. Still had no idea what she watched for, but she’d know it when it came.

His eyes scanned her booth, the plastic bins of loose teas, the kettles bubbling on her small stove. Jars of dried roots and rhizomes stood in ranks on the table beside Minnow, a few bundles of flowering stems hanging from the canopy above.

“You’re an herbalist?” said the Turk, sipping tea.

She shrugged one shoulder. “I dabble.”

“I’m looking for a Kanpo-i.”

Dangerously direct, for a Turk. “Kanpo is not my calling.” She spread her hands, a gesture inclusive of tea, herbs, and kettles. “I offer simple restoratives.”

She lifted the lid of the largest kettle, revealing the deep brown stock within. Misdirection based on truth, she reflected, was more effective than lies. “This fine shiitake dashi, for one.”

He blinked. “Soup?”

“The original restorative,” she said, “from which we get the very word, ‘restaurant.’ Would you like to try some?”

“Not just now.” He drank the rest of his tea, tossing the cup into the nearby trash can. The Turk’s eyes, black as belladonna, returned to her face. “I’m still looking for a medical herbalist.”

Unsmiling, she said, “Perhaps in another corner of the market.”

His fine dark brows drew together. “Perhaps.”

She watched him walk away, disappearing almost at once among the market stalls.

The day continued cold and damp. A steady stream of coughing customers depleted Minnow’s store of licorice root and thyme. Some paid in gil, others in more abstract coin, trading news for cups of broth.

“You hear?” said an old man, slurping soup through a gap in his teeth. “Corel reactor’s down. Wasn’t even finished yet.”

“Old news,” said another regular. “Word is AVALANCHE bombed it. Heard it from a SOLDIER Third Class. You talked to him, didn’t you, Minnow?”

“I may have,” she said, hiding a smile. “I don’t recall.”

“AVALANCHE broke up,” said the first man, with a gap-toothed grin. “Dead or scattered.”

“Turks,” said someone else, making a sign to avert bad luck. Minnow did smile at that, when at the edge of her vision, a dark suit passed by. She turned to look. No one was there.

The back of her neck prickled, on and off, until noon had come and gone.

Lunch rush over, cups and kettles washed, stove cooled, she pulled down the rolling steel door and locked it in place. Packets of herbs, jars of soup, and a few odds and ends filled a small canvas cart on wheels. Perhaps a shadow followed her, as she began her rounds, but it couldn’t be helped. On the street, one could not hide from Turks; Minnow knew better than to try.

Instinct proved correct. As she neared her first stop, a lanky figure in a rumpled suit fell into step beside her. Bright blue eyes and a saucy mouth leered at her. “Whatcha got in the cart, lady?”

“Soups and simples, young man.”

He scratched his head, fiery hair falling over one shoulder. “Simple what?”

Minnow walked on, the Turk following. She passed the front of the Inn with its garish red lanterns, went around to the alley, and knocked sharply on the back door. It opened; a young woman in yellow and black stripes, and little else, looked out.

“Oh thank Gaia! Did you bring it?”

“Of course.” Minnow handed the girl a couple of bulging packets, accepting a handful of coins in return.

“What’s that?” asked the Turk. “What’s it for?”

“Yarrow and black cohosh,” said Minnow, “for heavy bleeding and for cramps.”

“Um,” said the Turk, backing away, his face as red as his hair. “Yeah, okay, carry on…” He beat a fast retreat up the alley. The Bee girl’s laughter brightened the overcast day.

“Mind if I use your bathroom, dear?” Minnow asked.

“Not a bit! Come on in.” The Bee girl helped Minnow pull her cart in over the step. Dim lights flickered in the narrow hall. The scent of peony hung heavy in the air, not quite masking the sharp smell of sweat and liquor. Drumbeats echoed from somewhere at the front of the house, twanging shamisen and lilting flute building to a crescendo. Applause and catcalls rattled the thin walls.

Minnow followed the girl around a corner, down a long hall, the wheels of her cart bumping over the uneven floor. “Here, miss,” said the girl with a wink, opening a door onto another alley. “And thank you!”

Minnow took the alley’s twists and turns past dumpsters and garbage bins, stepping over foul-smelling puddles of questionable origin. She counted off the shops as she walked: General store, noodle shop, dry cleaners, liquor store, three abandoned buildings with only rats for tenants. Wooden walls muffled the market’s staccato buzz, the chatter of shoppers, the sing-song chants of vendors, until she came to a rusty, corrugated iron gate.

She peered out, looking up at roofs and balconies, at stairs going up and stairs going down, at doorways and windows across the street and to either side. No sign of Turks. The passersby moved naturally, some striding, some slinking like feral cats, but they did not split into twin streams, eddying around a central, dangerous point. No one cast apprehensive glances over their shoulders.

Emerging from the alley, Minnow walked on until the rumble under her feet heralded the train station. Her timing proved fortunate. Steel rails shrieked as the train to Sector Seven pulled up at the platform. With her prepaid monthly pass in her pocket, she boarded the last car.

Sector Seven sulked in the under-plate gloom, patrolled by Shinra troops, young regulars with rifles slung on their backs. A common sight, but here they walked in twos and threes, casting quick glances over their shoulders. A cluster of men, slouching under a street lamp, watched the soldiers pass, then put their heads together, whispering, laughing, miming knife thrusts with clenched fists.

The lamppost bore a ragged poster, torn in half, a black-clad arm and a two-meter sword all that remained.

Glowing neon marked Minnow’s destination, the words “7th Heaven” picked out in mercury glass colors of gold and green, bright as Yule ornaments against weathered walls. Inside, the proprietor greeted her with a sweet smile.

“Minnow!” She waved from behind the bar.

Minnow returned her smile. “Miss Lockhart. Where’s the patient?”

“Out back. I’ll call him.” Going to the rear door, the young woman yelled, “Barret! Minnow’s here!”

The man who came in answer to her call was as broad as he was tall, as dark and tough as ironwood. His face seemed set in a perpetual scowl, but the effect was softened by the small girl who rode on his shoulders, laughing.

“Minnow’s here! Minnow’s here!” the child sang.

“Yes, she is, but she’s got work to do,” said Barret. He set the little girl down gently on her feet. “Don’t you be bothering her, Marlene!”

“I won’t!”

“Where d’you want me, Ms. Minnow?” asked Barret.

Minnow directed him to a booth, opening the top flap of her cart while he sat down. She set up her tools, while Marlene edged closer, watching, hands clasped behind her back.

“Now, then, Mister Wallace,” said Minnow as she settled the strap of her headlamp around her brow and clicked on the light. “Let’s see what the trouble is.”

Barret laid his right arm on the table, placing his prosthetic directly under the light.

"Right here, y’see.” Pushing back the heavy protective sleeve that covered the meeting of metal and flesh, he pointed to the juncture of cuff and forearm. “The end don’t fit right. It’s loose. And the wrist joint’s been stickin’ a lot lately.”

“We‘ll check the fitting first, and then have a look at the wrist.” Minnow adjusted her lamp, selected a tool, and began to work.

A couple of hours later, Barret flexed his arm, twisting and turning it at the wrist and elbow. He grinned. “Damn, good as new!”

“Not quite,” said Minnow, as she wiped her screwdrivers and other implements with a clean cloth. “The mako jelly is only a temporary fix. That gasket needs replacing.”

“Maybe next time.”

“You know, that arm is wearing out,” she said. “A newer model, with better electronics, would be more comfortable and perform more tasks.”

“I know,” said Barret. “But that’s not in the cards right now. Got too much else goin’ on.”

He didn’t specify. Minnow didn’t ask. Barret Wallace was a miner without a mine; work was scarce in Midgar for men with his skills. Missing one hand would have been a disadvantage for most, but Barret’s metal hand had other functions, some of which went unmentioned. Minnow had cleaned all of the joints, including the fingers.

Most prosthetic fingers did not need bore brushes and cleaning rods to do a proper job.

“Is your arm all better now, Daddy?” Marlene asked, patting his hand.

“It’s perfect now, baby.” He scooped her up and deposited her on his lap. Marlene gazed at Minnow expectantly.

Minnow chuckled. Digging into a pocket on her cart, she produced a small handful of candied ginger and passed it to Marlene.

“Thank you!” said Marlene, without prompting, as she popped a piece of ginger into her mouth.

Ah, little girls. At this age they were so much easier to please.

Minnow stayed for a cup of coffee and a pear tart. After, as she packed up her cart, Barret reached over and pressed a couple of gil into her hand.

“You don’t need to,” said Minnow.

“Take it while I got it,” he said. “You earned it.”

That was a working man’s pride talking. Minnow respected that.

\---

The Turk came back to her stall the next morning. He bought his customary cup of tea, saying nothing about a red-haired colleague who’d lost track of her at the Honeybee Inn.

“I’m still looking for a Kanpo-i,” he said, breathing in the fragrance of gunpowder black tea flavored with peppermint.

“I’m sure the market can provide,” said Minnow. “Have you tried the Wutaian quarter?”

His mouth shaped a smile like a knife-slash. “They sent me here.”

“Ah, Shinra-sama,” said Minnow, “I’m afraid you’ve been misled.”

“My name is not Shinra.”

“It might as well be,” she said, and turned her back.

Every morning for a week, he returned. Every morning, he bought a cup of tea, and asked again about Kanpo. Minnow considered giving him alder buckthorn in place of ginger, chamomile or peppermint; her grandmother had always said that she who could not harm, could not heal. But ethics forbade, and she’d long ago left behind superstitions for science. So she smiled, and bowed, and gave no ground; and every morning, request refused, he retreated.

Came the morning that an errand took her to Sector Five. She went roundabout, pulling her cart over bridges and up stairways, until the small, neat house with its old iron fence and its bright flower beds came into sight.

The lady of the house met her at the door. As slight and brown as a sparrow, her sweet, plain face wore a sunny smile, despite a reddened nose and watery eyes.

“Hello, Minnow, do come in.”

“Mrs. Gainsborough,” said Minnow, bringing her cart inside. “Feeling better today?”

“Yes, very much, thank you.” Elmyra Gainsborough bustled around the tiny kitchen, setting out a teapot and chipped china cups on a snowy white cloth. “It was your tea that broke the fever, you know.”

“I’ve brought you another packet,” said Minnow, “and some soup.” She set the jars on the table. “Chocobo with onions and garlic, the best medicine for a bad cold. And how is your daughter?”

“Quite well,” said Elmyra, though some dark thought or memory flickered over her face. “Head in the clouds, as always, but you know teen girls!”

They sat over tea, chatting about the vagaries of girls and their moods. As though they had conjured her, the girl herself appeared, flitting through the house on some errand of her own. She paused to kiss her mother’s cheek, and to greet Minnow.

“Do be careful, Aeris!” Elmyra said, as Aeris went out again.

“Oh, mother, you worry too much!” Graceful as a lily, Aeris hovered on the doorstep. “Everything will be all right,” she said, with an intensity that darkened her leaf-green eyes. “I promise.”

Minnow watched her run out the door and down the stairs, her steps so quick and light she seemed scarcely to touch the ground.

Elmyra exchanged a wry look with Minnow. “I worry,” she said, her lacy napkin crushed in her hand. Minnow nodded, knowing there was nothing she herself could do to dispel the shadow the Gainsboroughs lived under.

A servant of that shadow met her outside as she made her way home. He took his place walking beside her as though he had a right to be there.

“What were you doing at the Gainsboroughs’ house?” he demanded, his voice as dark as his suit, his hair, his angry eyes.

“Visiting,” said Minnow. “May a woman not visit another?”

“And what did you bring this one, Miss Not-a-Kanpo-i?”

“Chocobo soup like your grandma used to make,” said Minnow, “which would do you a world of good. If you ask nicely, perhaps she’ll give you a cup.”

“Perhaps you will,” he said, stopping just inside the gate of Sector Five.

“Perhaps.” Minnow walked on, thinking and re-thinking old beliefs, and new ones.

\---

He came for that cup of soup the next morning, waiting patiently in line behind her other regulars. When his turn came, he placed a gil on the table. “A helping of your best restorative, if you please.”

Perhaps to him it was a game. Minnow played along. She ladled out a generous serving in a foam cup. “Take care. It’s hot.”

He took the cup in his long hands, fingertips marked with a gunman’s calluses. At his first taste, one narrow black brow went up, and he swallowed quickly, blinking hard. “Ah. I see you meant a different kind of heat.”

“You have not had wasabi before?” she inquired, not amused, oh, not at all.

Eyeing her over the rim of the cup, he drank again, slowly. “Not for some time. It was unexpected.” He swallowed another mouthful. “This soup tastes very familiar. A traditional recipe?”

“A gift,” said Minnow, “from a fire-eater.”

“Fire-eater?” His attention drew in, sniper-focused.

“An old expression.” Sensing a misstep, Minnow made her face bland as milk. “A unique blend, this recipe. Warmth for a cold heart.”

Now it was he who seemed amused. “Why would you think I have a cold heart?”

“You would know better than I,” she said.

He sighed. “Kanpo-i?”

“I know of none. Good day, Shinra-sama.”

Another busy morning followed, and a hectic afternoon. Shopkeepers, housemaids, veterans of the Wutai war; fevers, headaches, malfunctioning limbs. Minnow sold analgesics and febrifuges, replaced electrodes and actuators. A shadow followed her, once or twice, watching but never approaching. If the goal was to wear her down, she wished him joy of it.

The evening crowd had begun to fill the market, trading gil for fried onions and peppery sausages, plump pork dumplings, or bowls of mussels in thin wine. Minnow passed up these lesser offerings in favor of Berle the fishmonger’s stall. He cooked only one thing each day, his choice; but it was always worthwhile.

He set up his single table for her. She ate slowly, savoring baked eels with tamarind, the fish smoky-sweet and silky, the piquant sauce tingling on her tongue.

“Perfect,” she told the fishmonger, even as her eyes searched the shadows beyond his stall. “You’re an artist.”

He smiled, heaped more fish on her plate. As she ate, he leaned against the counter, puffing on a narrow cigar. “How’s business?”

“Brisk,” said Minnow. “Some virus going around.”

“That’s not all,” said Berle.

“No. Tensions running high. Sold a lot of valerian and Costan passiflora.”

The fishmonger grunted. “Ain’t no one gonna sleep well ‘til old man Shinra ties up the loose ends.”

“Who’s in, who’s out?”

“Shinra junior’s in,” said Berle, tapping ash off the end of his cigar. “Board of directors still intact, keepin’ their heads down. SOLDIER’s done. All the pretty Firsts--” He snapped his fingers. “Gone.”

Minnow nodded. The rites for Generals Rhapsodos and Hewley had been hurried and understated. Shortly after, Midgar had all but shut down for the first three days of mourning for the great war hero, Sephiroth. Frayed streamers of black bunting still hung from no few homes and businesses, left over from the traditional forty-nine days.

“The heart’s gone out of it,” Berle reflected, watching the smoke of his cigar drift away, into the darkening sky. “Don’t suppose they’ll keep the Seconds and Thirds much longer.”

“They’re safe enough,” Minnow said. “He’ll want to get his money’s worth.”

Berle squinted at her. “Maybe. You got a source, Miss Minnow?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing like yours.”

“Well, you might be right. Turks, now, that’s where the fur flew.”

Minnow watched the shadows. “Oh?”

“Old chief’s out. Word is,” said the fishmonger, leaning close, his voice barely above a whisper as he mimed a gun with his hand, “the new one took ‘im out himself.”

Minnow’s heart kicked hard, a sharp recoil from the phantom shot. Her meal turned to ash inside her. “Who? A name?”

“Oh, you’ve seen him about,” said Berle. “The Wutaian. Name of Tseng.”

There were embers in the ash, still. She fanned them to flames, hotter than wasabi. Hot as Ifrit’s Hellfire.

\---

When market rumor, official news, and below-stairs gossip all concurred, one could take it as holy writ. A Shinra cook confirmed what Minnow found buried in the back pages of the Morning News: The traitor Turk, former director Veld, had been killed by gunfire alongside the leader of the terrorist group AVALANCHE. Good riddance, said President Shinra.

Good and bad were subjective terms. Minnow wore black in honor of a man whose life had balanced good and evil, selfishness against the greater good. She prepared pots of soup and tea, salty and sour, sweet and pungent, and one rare blend, dark and bitter, for a very special customer.

He came with the rising sun, the Turk called Tseng. She set his name in her mind, balanced against the name and memory of another man, and found Tseng wanting. Her regulars, seeing her black garments, bowed respectfully, murmured condolences, their usual chatter subdued. Tseng paced, waiting for them to leave, his movements sharp as banners snapping in the wind.

Then it was just Tseng and Minnow, face to face, and the distant crackle of lightning in the air.

“Your morning tea,” said Minnow, handing him a cup of her grandmother’s most potent brew. Tseng took the cup, but did not drink.

“My sympathies for your loss,” he said, his young-old face wreathed in steam as he breathed in the tart fragrance. “I’m sorry to impose at this time, but I must speak with you on behalf of…a mutual friend.”

He still had not drunk the tea. She kept her eyes on his face. “I share no friends with Shinra.”

“You did once,” he said, his voice so low she barely heard it over her own swift heartbeat.

She’d begun to think they didn’t care, had let her go. What secrets she had were decades old. She was no longer a threat, merely one of those loose ends, as Berle had said.

This man’s mentor had looked the other way. She could expect no such mercy from Tseng. Her only hope now lay in a rapidly-cooling cup of tea.

“Tell me one thing,” she said, stalling. “Why the pretense of searching for a Kanpo-i?”

“It’s not pretense! He needs your help!”

“Tell the president I’m not interested.”

“Not he,” Tseng hissed. “A man you knew and worked with. A friend.” His voice had risen. Now he dropped it again. “The fire-eater.”

She said nothing, gave away nothing.

“I remembered where I’d had that soup before,” said Tseng. “It was his.”

His eyes flicked left, right, quick as a bird assessing risk before committing itself. Cup still clutched, forgotten, in his right hand, he reached with his left into a pocket, laid something on the table. “Names are dangerous where ears might be listening. He said you’d know what this means.”

Minnow touched the small, flat, green-black square. “Nori…”

She looked at Tseng. “If you know this much, why am I still standing? What do you want?”

“He sent me to you,” said Tseng. “He put that into my hands himself, along with his trust. He‘s alive...” Shaping a word with silent lips, he added, _Minori_.

Truly a cold heart, and no shame. “This means nothing.” She tossed the little piece of seaweed into the trash. “You’re a Turk, you could have learned this years ago.”

He huffed a breath, short and sharp. “What will it take to convince you? Must I let my own blood?”

She couldn’t help it. Her eyes darted to the cup he still held in his hand. He _was_ a Turk, trained by the best. She saw the comprehension darken his face.

“So that’s the game,” he said. She didn’t move, and which of them was predator, which prey, she never knew. Holding her gaze, he lifted the cup to his mouth.

“I swear on my life that I’m telling the truth,” he said, and drank.

Minnow thought her own heart stopped; she recognized what she’d been watching for in the years since she’d fled the inner halls of Shinra. She saw it every day in her own mirror, and here it was looking back at her.

Had she seen anything at all, or had her eyes been veiled all along? She’d left Shinra, but Shinra had never left her.

“Now do you believe me?” said Tseng.

She found her voice among the shattered pieces of her carefully-built fiction. “Yes. What do you need?”

“I told you,” he said, setting down the half-empty cup. “I need a Kanpo-i. Not for myself.” His mouth made a wry twist. “For our mutual friend, and for someone dear to him. Will you come?”

“I will.” She took the cup, dashed the remaining liquid into the slops pail. “Wait.”

She found paper and pen, and wrote a few words. “Take this to your physician at once. Don’t wait. If--when you’ve recovered, come get me. I’ll be ready.”

“If I don’t come,” he said, “my second will. His name is Reno. You’ve met him.” His voice went dry as smoke. “Don’t scare him away again, please.”

“I won’t. And Tseng,” she said, stopping him as he turned to go. “…Well-played.”

He bowed. “Honored Doctor.”

\---

When the lanky red-head appeared as Minnow shut her stall for the day, her heart sank. He carried her bags, letting her stew for the several minutes it took them to walk to the market gate. Outside, a plain black car waited. Reno opened the rear door, shut it after her.

Minnow let out a painful breath. “You live.”

“As you see.” Tseng’s face was a shade paler than normal, shadows bruising the hollows under his eyes. He looked up as the driver’s door slammed and Reno met his gaze in the mirror. “Go,” said Tseng.

Reno pulled away, taking them to the main highway where they quickly merged into the heavy traffic. He took the first exit out of Midgar, into the dusky twilight, the city lights falling away behind them. Minnow asked no questions; either Tseng had told the truth or he hadn’t. Soon enough she would know.

An hour and more passed without conversation. Reno turned on the radio, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to one inane pop tune after another. Tseng made no objection. He might have dozed, though the glitter of his eyes could be seen under half-lowered lids. A light sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. Why he wasn’t flat on his back in a hospital, she did not know.

Minnow held one bag on her lap, the other at her feet. The Turks hadn’t given her specifics, so she’d brought everything she could think of: Herbal preparations, surgical implements and supplies, her toolkit, a thermos, and one large, sealed jar, wrapped in a towel to hold in the heat.

When the car began to slow, Minnow’s gaze followed the twin headlight beams, heavy with dancing dust, to the huge bulk of a building that blocked the sky. Reno exited, helped Minnow and her bags out, went around the car to hover at Tseng’s elbow.

“I’m fine,” Tseng snapped. “Go, get the door.”

Inside, Reno switched on a single bare bulb hanging from a cobwebbed wire. The vast space held a mass of abandoned office furniture, hung with heavy shadows. Odds and ends lay scattered about, here a rusty metal chair, there a broken window frame, vertical blinds in a tangle of ropes. The whole mess reeked of mildew, damp concrete, rotting wood.

A narrow doorway gaped across the room. Dead silence and an air of desertion reigned.

Every sense on high alert, Minnow studied the scene, and smiled. Each piece of junk had been laid precisely in place to create an obstacle course between the piles of old desks and filing cabinets. A stack of empty drawers teetered; one careless move would bring it all down. Broken glass glinted, jagged points sticking out to the catch the unwary.

It was a masterpiece of misdirection, pointing hostile intruders toward the dark door on the far side of the space. Minnow stood still, waiting.

Reno stepped forward, and called out, “Honey, I’m home!”

Tseng gave a nearly-inaudible groan. Ahead to the left, someone sighed.

“Close enough,” said a man’s voice. He stepped around the mountain of furniture, and his scarred face, worn and weary, lit up with a brilliant smile.

“Minori! My gods, it’s good to see you!”

His hands, one flesh and bone, one steel and synthetic, took hers in the strong, steady grip she remembered. “Thank you for coming. I owe you one.”

“There are no debts between friends,” said Minnow, blinking back tears. “Now, show me what you need. I’m here to help.”

A small space had been cleared behind the furniture, hidden away from prying eyes. Here, Veld had a couple of cots, a folding chair, a camp table, and a battery lamp. On one cot lay a woman, asleep or unconscious. Sweat-damp hair clung to her ashen face. Her right hand twitched on the blanket, the fine bones and dark veins sharp under her skin around a white, puckered scar. An injured Turk?

Minnow looked more closely, past the fevered exhaustion. The dark bronze hair, the line of the jaw, though feminine and youthful, echoed Veld’s.

“Gods of Gaia…” How was this girl here, alive, grown to adulthood when everyone knew she’d died years ago in Kalm?

Veld sat beside her, taking her hand gently in his own. “Felicia? Wake up, honey.”

She started, her other hand reaching in a fighter’s instinctive move for a weapon. “What…what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Minori is here to help you, Felicia.”

She blinked bleary eyes, and screwed up her mouth. “It’s _Elfe_ , Papa. How many times--”

He smoothed back her hair, his flesh hand deft and gentle. “Yes, yes, I know.”

“I heard about the shooting,” said Minnow. “I see the report was inaccurate.”

“Not entirely,” said Veld. “Tseng saved us both, but...it’s a long story.”

Minnow began to unpack her herbs and instruments. “Tell me.”

While she examined his daughter, he told her the entire incredible tale.

\---

“Will she live?”

Turks did not fear the hard questions. If Veld’s voice shook just a little, Minnow paid it no mind. They sat quietly over coffee, outside of Elfe’s range of hearing, while Tseng watched the highway and Reno patrolled the grounds.

“I believe so,” said Minnow. “She’s weak. The Summon took a lot out of her. Her immune system will probably never be what it should. She’ll have to be careful; what puts someone else under the weather for a bit, might kill her.”

He nodded. “Thought so.”

Confirmation, even of bad news, could be reassuring, in its way. Visibly setting aside his worry, he said, “So, you and your daughter are well? Has that husband of yours made Second yet?”

“We’re fine. Maia’s at school out of town. As for Takeshi, he’s content as a Third.”

“Wise decisions, both.”

“Are you going to stay in hiding?” Minnow asked.

“For now.” He poured the last of the coffee, hot and ink-black, from the thermos into his cup. “Tseng’s on a short leash. Felicia, excuse me, _Elfe_ , and I are supposed to be dead. But the Old Man can’t last forever, and I have hopes for Rufus. Whether he lives up to them remains to be seen.”

At her troubled silence, he offered a crooked smile. “Don’t worry about us, Minori. We won’t be alone. When the time comes, you’ll be seeing us again.”

“I look forward to that day.” She smiled, and then remembered something. “Here.”

She removed the towel from the jar and unsealed the lid. Steam rolled out, spilling a pungent, vegetal fragrance into the air. Veld breathed it in, a delighted smile taking years off his face. “You remembered.”

He rinsed the thermos cup with bottled water, then carefully poured a measure of soup and drank it at once. “Ahh, that’s the real stuff!”

“May it give you strength, my fire-eater friend. And here,” said Minnow, taking up her toolkit. “Let me give that arm a tune-up.”

“You’re a woman of many talents,” Veld said, pouring more soup.

“I am what I need to be,” Minnow said, “and, I hope, better than I was.”

Veld rolled up the sleeve on his left arm. With clear eyes, Minnow began to work.

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Kanpo-i is the name for traditional Japanese herbal medicine. I hope I have not offended anyone by using the term here.


End file.
